It's obviously not as dangerous as a tornado or an earthquake or a flood, but it's still a natural disaster, and disrupted society in the region for weeks and months.
At first it was difficult to realize the size of the catastrophe but then millions went without power, the infrastructure crumbled under the ice and roads became impracticable. The magnitude of the disaster became apparent when the army had to come and help.
Luckily I lived in a rural area at the time and we relied on a wood furnace for heat and hot water. We also shared a generator with other family members so I had power a few hours a day. Compared to people without heat water, food or electricity, it went ok for my family.
It took about 10 days for my region to have power back, while others had to wait for up to 30 days.
This left its mark on me and now I try to be prepared, have batteries charged, solar panels, water reserves, food for a few days, a camping stove, ways to keep warm, etc., just in case.
They did in rural areas 20 years ago. I grew up on a rural road and it was totally a thing to send mail by putting it in the mailbox and raise the flag.
Maybe it's just a rural thing for people with individual mailboxes, or maybe they stopped doing this, but it was possible a few decades ago.
I've been using MATE since Gnome 3. I really liked the simplicity of Gnome 2 and was unable to adapt to their "new" way so I switched to MATE and it just clicked. I tried Gnome 3 a few times again but I just can't.
As for why MATE instead of XFCE or others? Because I already used and tried XFCE in the past and prefered Gnome 2's look and feel. In fact, I have been going out of my way for years to keep every app using GTK2 and my favourite theme because I like how it looks and feel, and Gnome 3 and GTK3 broke this. So MATE it was. They switched to GTK3 too eventually but it gave my time to adjust.
My only "complaints" about it are the file manager Caja, and the way you can list windows, which both feel very basic. I would like those two to get better.
I try and use different DE from time to time, from Fluxbox to E17, but I just go back to MATE. My favorite DE of all time was E16 but it took waaay too long for E17 to be functional and I ended up keeping MATE.
This reminds me of the efforts made against tobacco and for cleaner air in certain areas, but it also reminds me how we do this for other things too.
Radium toothpaste, lead paint and asbestos curtains.
So, as someone that sees cars as a significant source of pollution, from exhausts, brake pads and tires, I find it ironic that some places are banning outdoor smoking in public areas while it's perfectly acceptable to drive a gas guzzler around and among those places.
Like, I'm so grateful nobody can smoke around me on that restaurant's terrace, this way I can fully enjoy breathing the pollution from the thousand of cars around.
I can't tell for BlueSky because I have not joined yet, but I did create a Mastodon account months ago and I'm not sure what to do with it or how to interact with others. I find it confusing.
On Twitter I was mostly following a bunch of like minded people, liking their stuff, and I could see what they liked too. But on Mastodon there's uuh, boosts and favorites?! I'm not sure of how it works or what I'm doing. I can't just "like" posts? I have to boost them?! I found the people I liked that were on Twitter, but on Mastodon I feel like there's nothing I can do aside from seeing posts and it's just not attractive.
I can't stand ads. It's even worse on TV when they yell them at you. So I actually stopped watching TV in 2009 because I couldn't stop the ads, and I was tired to have the TV trying to convince me to buy a car every 15 minutes.
If I want to watch something that was on TV, I download it from... * the internet *.
My parents still watch TV and just let the ads blast in the background, and we need to yell over them to talk. I hate it. Then they're like "oh it's just like in the ad". I don't know how they can tolerate this. I did when I was younger but when I realized that the TV was trying to sell me twice a car in 15 minutes, or about 8 times an hour, I couldn't help but notice and it's just really annoying.
Then you can stay on forums that needs to be refreshed, or uuuh.. isn't there a proprietary IRC like thing for young people, something like Disco? Or Discom. Or Discord? Apparently it's much like IRC but without the freedom.
Meanwhile I've always been the one that takes the smallest possible meal at McDonald's, and would think that 5 nuggets with fries and drinks is just enough. In fact I hate going to restaurants in general because portions are always much too big for me. I can't usually take doggy bags, and I feel like I'm wasting most of what I'm served. I can't recall even finishing a plate in a (real) restaurant; there's always too much. I'm always like "oh it was really tasty but I can't eat much more!"
The slow death of the American empire. It may push the rest of the world to a geopolitical realignment that excludes the US. This could allow international organizations to proceed without having the US veto human rights, actions against climate change, or things like that.
Yeah, having more than half the US population vote for fascism is the Democrats' fault, obviously. They should have changed their strategy so that people that like fascism vote for them instead of a fascist. Damn Democrats forcing Americans to vote for fascism by making the other half apathetic.
If at least the Democrats would have done enough to get the votes of non-fascists Americans, they could have won and spend another 4 years of status quo.
Go ahead and blame the Democrats because half of the US population has voted for fascism. It's partly right. But it also ignores the fact that whatever the Democrats would do, a very significant chunk of the US population is convinced fascist policies is the way to go.
I've been working nights for about 20 years and it was easier when I was younger. Now that I am in my early 40ies I find it more difficult to just go to bed and sleep.
Some weeks I can keep a steady schedule, sleep during the day and feel well rested, but other weeks I can't get more than a few hours during the day and feel miserable when I work.
However it's also changing with seasons and things I do during the weekend. I tend to sleep less in summer because of the heat and the light. Also I go camping during the weekends and have to sleep during the night, then switch back to day sleeping during the week. It's much easier in winter because it's always cold and dark and I just stay home.
Yeah pretty often. It goes even further, as in, I don't want to participate in society, or forced capitalism, in general. I'm aware I'm part of it but I always tried to not be a part of that shitty system. I'm not buying a house, no car, no gas to buy, no superior education, no certifications or high paying job. I just wasted my "potential" and will continue to do so.
To me it looks like a big chuck of people have some sort of Stockholm syndrome towards capitalism and how our society makes us think this is some sort of meritocracy.
That being said, my behaviour can also be linked to my spicy brain. I'm probably neurodivergent but the health system where I live doesn't help adults with that.
In short, I'm disappointed by what I see around me and I don't want to join the game. I don't want to join the competition of poors against poors
I'm not sure about the circlejerk thing. I am vehemently anti car and would like to circlejerk on one of the many "fuck cars" communities, but any post that gets some attention gets filled by comments of people not from those communities.
So I very often see posts where I agree with the content but the discussion and the comments are all over the place, from car apologists that are like "but IIIIIIIII live in the woods therefore public transit is not feasible for anyone", and it makes "circlejerking" difficult.
Like, if you have a community about mushroom and want to have enthusiasts discussing mycology, it'll be fine until a thread becomes popular and fills with users not from that community, asking what is mycology and why they should care.
To be honest, I had the same issue on reddit too and that's a major reason why I stopped going there.
I go camping for an additional night. I already planned to bike and camp to the closest national park one last time before winter, this weekend, but I would gladly add one night to the trip and go right now instead of tomorrow.
I was 15 during the 1998 ice storm.
It's obviously not as dangerous as a tornado or an earthquake or a flood, but it's still a natural disaster, and disrupted society in the region for weeks and months.
At first it was difficult to realize the size of the catastrophe but then millions went without power, the infrastructure crumbled under the ice and roads became impracticable. The magnitude of the disaster became apparent when the army had to come and help.
Luckily I lived in a rural area at the time and we relied on a wood furnace for heat and hot water. We also shared a generator with other family members so I had power a few hours a day. Compared to people without heat water, food or electricity, it went ok for my family.
It took about 10 days for my region to have power back, while others had to wait for up to 30 days.
This left its mark on me and now I try to be prepared, have batteries charged, solar panels, water reserves, food for a few days, a camping stove, ways to keep warm, etc., just in case.